MATE AND HIS LOVER 9

#41 These pack wolves

Six middle aged men — all of whom have been trained to win since they were little boys, and the best of the best of Raketrope's fighters — charge against Nate.

Ross and Castino themselves are in it. This is, after all, Nate's ultimate test, as his training comes to an end.

The training ground is submerged in a haze of kicked up dust as Nate blocks and attacks his opponents from all directions. He had sustained some minor injuries — a deep cut across his right leg, a swollen ribcage, opened up chin, and more likes of it. But each injury has healed itself before the next one was made, leaving him unscathed, but tired, as he continues his defense.

Nate soon makes his first win when he throws one of the men outside the circle, triggering a loud cheer from the crowd watching them.

The five remaining spread apart to make up for their loss.

Nate focuses on the man closest to him next. When the man swoops on Nate, Nate takes a hold of him instead, and tries to wrestle him to the border, but soon gets away from his captive when two more men jump on Nate.

Nate's eyes are constantly trying to gauge the weakness in the group in front of him while his ears are ready to alert him on the slightest noise from behind.

In the midst of the ongoing fight, Nate tries the same man again. This time, rather than wrestling him out, Nate uses his speed to his advantage. When he gets the break, Nate lunges for the man, and ends up propelling him to the outside of the circle from the impact.

With two out, and a deafening holler around him, Nate makes a smile. The other four look at each other.

Ross nods, before the four of them change to their wolf forms.

The crowd goes dead silent. The rule is no transformation.

But Nate is unfazed. Even though he didn't expect that, Nate understands that fights in real life are unfair. One should be prepared for anything.

For a while Nate struggles to get a hold of himself since fighting off wolves in a human form can be tricky. But once he gets himself adjusted, Nate tries to figure out how to get them out.

One of the wolves lunges at him, and Nate moves away in time. The wolf topples over the ground before steadying itself and that gives Nate an idea. He just needs to get the timing right. 

As the prowls and growls pick up around him, Nate gets his chance when that same wolf prepares to jump on him again.

When it does, Nate waits until the very last moment to get out of its way. The wolf ends up colliding with the wolf that was right behind Nate and together they tumble out of the circle, unable to put a brake on their own mass from rolling.

Only Ross' and Castino's wolves are inside the circle. They change back to their human forms. Two men throw clothes at them from the crowd. If there's one thing there's no shortage of in a training ground, that's spare clothes. Even though they are all used to absolute nudity, the guys still like to look civilized as often as they can.

Ross and Castino exchange glances before Ross takes a step toward Nate, and Castino moves back.

It looks like it's going to be a one on one fight from here onwards.

Nate has found that the toughest fights are always the one on ones. When against a group you can hit one of the opponents even when you miss the other. In the chaos of the group it will also be harder for the opponents to attack him because they don't know who is doing what — who grabs the arms? Who grabs the neck? Legs?... And more importantly, the opponents will get in the way of each other.

But you can't find any of that in a direct conflict with a singular enemy, for you can't escape from your opponent's sight.

Ross and Nate commence their fight. Ross gives his all to win against his most beloved pupil. Nate, however, is much faster than Ross had anticipated, all thanks to the fact that Nate has just come out of his fight against his opponents in their wolf forms.

Eventually, one right trip of Ross's leg by Nate lands Ross on the ground with one of his arms outside the circle.

The audience watches this in awe but no one dares to clap their hands out of fear of their most fearsome trainer.

Nate reaches out his hand to his master who takes it. As Ross stands back up he proudly pats Nate's shoulder with a wide grin.

After Ross steps out, Nate faces his final opponent and his uncle, Castino.

Castino is the second best fighter in the entire pack, better than even the Beta and Delta, and only next to his older brother, Alpha Christopher. In fact, Castino would have been the Beta if he wasn't so disinterested in the pack's politics.

Five minutes in the fight, Nate pushes his foot firmly against the soft ground so it wouldn't slide out of the circle. The audience are anxiously watching Castino holding a struggling Nate at the very of edge the ring.

Castino is much stronger than Nate. And moreover, he had a brief rest while Nate and Ross fought. Whereas Nate is at the brink of exhaustion.

Nate somehow manages to escape from Castino's hold, but falls to the ground. In the blink of an eye, Castino has his elbow across Nate's throat, pinning Nate down.

Nate tries to push Castino away, but Castino barely budges. As Nate moves his head side to side to find a way out, he sees Daisy in the crowd at his right. She squats down to the ground and quickly gestures throwing something into her eyes.

Nate faces up. He stops moving, to stop wasting his energy, and focuses his strength on one of his arms and manages to wrest it out from under, grabs a handful of dirt and throws it at Castino's eyes.

Castino, who was not at all prepared for such a juvenile move from his nephew, falls back rubbing his eyes. Even when Nate was a child, Nate never used an easy way out of a fight. No bites. No throwing things at people. Nothing of that sort.

Nate grabs the distracted Castino's hand and pulls him to the border, and pushes him out of the circle.

The entire training ground breaks into a loud celebration, a celebration that is heard even by the Alpha who is going through documents in his office. And Patrick, in the midst of his own training near the pack's border.

Daisy slips out at the back of the cheering crowd, shaking her head in disapproval. "These pack wolves," she says to herself, "don't even know how to fight." 

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